Author: Kevin Welch

If you’ve got 90 minutes to spare, this looks like a great discussion with Richard Stallman of GNU and FSF fame about EME, also known as DRM in the HTML5 standard, and why such systems of software control leave us all worse off.

Our speaker at our April monthly meetup will be David DeMaris. David DeMaris has worked in computer design software, computational neuroscience, computer vision, social robotics, music, visuals, theatrical sound design, and DJing. His Ph.D. work was on similarity and object invariance using time-varying oscillating networks.

David will be giving us a talk on the relationship between rhythms and collective intelligence, with an emphasis on the trends in the neuroscience of shared intentions. How does the brain coordinate diverse elements into intelligent higher level systems? Does the internet or goverment act like a mind? Is it sane or crazy? How should humans and AI relate? If the brain depends on rhythms, would rhythms make society and organizations function more smoothly?

The meetup will be at Capital Factory at 7:00pm on Monday, April 11th.

Our speaker this month will be Kathy Mitchell. Kathy is a volunteer with the Texas Electronic Privacy Coalition working to require police to get a warrant to access cell phone location data. She was a policy analyst on Open Government issues for Consumers Union for several years and led public advocate negotiating of the last major rewrite of the Public Information Act. In 2006, she was the PAC Treasurer for a Prop that would have opened police misconduct records if it had passed. She has been in the trenches for more than 20 years trying to make sure the public can see government records and hold government accountable while protecting that same public from government intrusion in the form of unwarranted surveillance.

Kathy will be discussing the privacy and data retention issues surrounding the coming widespread use of Police Body Cameras both in Austin and at large. Very soon, Austin police officers will be equipped with video cameras (body cams) that will always be on during encounters with the public. But the city has yet to finalize a policy around data collection, data privacy, data retention/expunction and public access. There is a strong interest in public access, especially for video related to misconduct or incidents in which a civilian is hurt or killed. There is also a strong interest in privacy for everyone who may be the subject of body camera video. This talk will walk through some of the options that are on the table for an APD body camera policy that encourages accountability while also protecting privacy. We will also discuss the process by which such a policy could be enacted, and what will happen if we enact no policy at all.

Posts navigation

Your Donations Enable Our Work

We are all volunteers at EFF-Austin and our work is enabled through donations from concerned citizens like you.

Mission

EFF-Austin advocates establishment and protection of digital rights and defense of the wealth of digital information, innovation, and technology. We promote the right of all citizens to communicate and share information without unreasonable constraint. We also advocate the fundamental right to explore, tinker, create, and innovate along the frontier of emerging technologies.